


The Consequences Of Family

by Nixta



Category: Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Cadets, Crack, Dimension Travel, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-10
Updated: 2017-06-24
Packaged: 2018-09-07 18:22:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8811361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nixta/pseuds/Nixta
Summary: Harry had always wanted a family growing up, now he wished the Mirror of Erised had showed him anything else.





	1. Maybe I Should Have Befriended the Troll

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fanfiction to ever be posted, please be kind. Criticism is welcome. This will be slash work, so if that is not your thing DO NOT READ THIS STORY.
> 
> This story works on the idea that Harry would not be that trusting after his upbringing with the Dursleys, and after all he's been through he would have a huge amount of snark to release on the world.

Disclaimer: neither Final Fantasy or Harry Potter belong to me, they are the property of their creators.

In the Wizarding World blood was everything. Affection could be shared with those not of one's family line, but one's own heir was the most important thing in any wizard's life. Some wizards did differ from the masses and invested a great deal of emotion in people not of their blood, but it was very unusual.

Harry Potter was already an oddity in the Wizarding World, and as the 'Saviour of the Light' it was assumed that he loved everyone.

Not true.

Due to his upbringing he had no desire for such personal bonds. The Dursleys would use such things against him or drive those people away, so why bother with the heartache.

Unfortunately, Ron Weasley did not understand this when he stuck to Harry's side like glue in that first year of schooling at Hogwarts. And Hermione Granger adopted this limpet impression after the troll incident. Then Mrs Weasley sent him Christmas presents, and his two tag-a-longs proved themselves useful in the protections/obstacle course hidden on the third floor. By the end of the first year he gave up and accepted the fact that he now had friends. And as with all possessions he had managed to keep in his time at the Dursleys, he protected them zealously.

This reluctant response of considering the people who clung to him for a considerable length of time as his, gained him two best friends, a godfather, a pseudo-godfather, a pseudo-family, quidditch teammates, other friends, numerous acquaintances and two demented house elves.

Unfortunately this way of thinking had gained him all of the above, whom upon learning his unique parentage had schemed and somehow sent him on a five year long vacation...to another dimension.

All of this because Harry had the dubious honour of being descended from the Beaufort Line, courtesy of his mother's mother's mother. The same line that had branched to produce Merlin, King Arthur, Morgana Le Fey, Anne Boleyn, and that crazy witch that disguised herself so she could be burned at the stake several times. It was from this line that his mother came, the only witch nuts enough to be so sure that the Veil of Death led to another dimension – and was created by pacifist witches to escape a dark lord over a millennium ago- that she actually stepped through it.

What followed for her was two years of being in the care of Hojo, whom she taunted mercilessly while he drew her blood and injected her with odd substances that her magic got rid of. Her indomitable spirit never once backed down, even when Hojo became terrifying because the President was sending his beloved Project S into battle too early and there was a risk of it being terminated. For a while the scientist had watched her contemplatively, then a new substance was added to her injections, and within three months she was throwing up into the cell's bucket and having odd cravings. The prick had impregnated her!

Over the next two months Hojo had gloated that his Project S would live on through her, all the while injecting a glowing green substance he called mako directly into her womb. Still, being from the bonkers line that she was, she had used the energy from the mako – and a ritual circle to focus that energy which she drew in her own blood – to apparate back to her own dimension using her marriage bond to her husband to guide her.

Fortunately she had a husband as nuts as she was, who not only believed her when she said that she had been in another dimension – that apparently moved half as fast as her home dimension, because four years had passed for her husband – but was also overjoyed that she was pregnant and happily proclaimed that the child would be his heir. Magic then worked hard to make his statement true, making the child his in magic and searching through the genetic provided by Project S for traits that matched his own.

Hence a child that any magic heritage ritual would swear was James Potter's, with the genetics of a psycho witch and a science experiment. Harry blamed this for his faulty survival instinct, his ability to attract any and all trouble within ten miles of himself, and the fact that breaking into Gringotts was the most fun he'd had in his life.

And Mr and Mrs Potter had kept it a secret from everyone, so the journals he received with his inheritance on his seventeenth birthday that had belonged to the madwoman who gave birth to him were a bit of a shock. Harry wished he hadn't been so curious about their contents, he also wished that he hadn't shared the contents with his best friends.

And voilà...he was in another dimension and stuck here for five years. Unless he completed the out clause one of the asylum dodgers he called family had so helpfully included in the ritual circle that brought him here.

Blood was so important to wizards because common blood provided an energy circuit and if he met this Project S and got some of its blood it would recharge the ritual and send him home. The catch: the blood had to be given willingly and used within an hour of it being given. So he'd have to convince Project S to come to the remote location of the ritual circle and willingly let him cut it. In other words, he'd have to spend time with whatever it was. 

If he was as blood obsessed as his psychotic family was he'd have killed them by now. As it was he wasn't, and so instead he trudged towards Shinra.

Joy! Note the sarcasm!


	2. Why a Country Boy Should Not Be In the City

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: the characters and worlds obviously belong to their respective creators.

Cloud Strife stared at his roommate, one of the rare twenty-somethings that made it to Shinra.

Everything had been going normally, for the most part: Cloud had arrived at the registration office with barely five minutes to spare after having gotten lost, he'd been given a weird up and down look (A/N: a leer, Cloud, it's a leer) and been called 'Jailbait'; he'd been assigned a room and on the way to that room he had been called names, pushed up against walls, and one guy had offered to 'pop his cherry'...whatever that meant. Then he'd arrived at his room and his roommate had seemed nice, and disinterested which Cloud's life had taught him was a good thing.

This illusion was shattered when Cloud opened his mouth to cut through the awkward silence of two strangers being asked to live in close quarters:

_“So...why did you come to Shinra?” An older guy must have done something else before he came here, so maybe Clod would get an interesting answer._

_He was not prepared for how interesting of an answer it was._

_“My mother was a nut-case who used an untested transportation device and ended up in the hands of a psychopath who used her in a weird breeding programme. I found this out three years ago from her journals, and the asylum dodgers I call friends decided to transport me to the same place so I can meet the science experiment that is my father. If you hear anything called Project S please let me know.” All of this in a monotone that clearly said the guy couldn't care less if he tried._

_Cloud couldn't tell if he was joking or not._

This was a dilemma that had occupied him for a month. He had watched the man to the point that the other cadets stage whispered 'did he want to bang that.' Not that he knew what that meant. And he had noticed that the man treated him differently from everyone else. With everyone else he was perfectly charming, seen as some sort of superior being due to his amazing fighting abilities, but was still 'one of the guys.' With Cloud he was monotone but generally helpful when going through fighting forms because Cloud didn't understand them. He also kept coming up with weird challenges for Cloud such as tying a knot in a cherry stalk with his tongue, to see if moaning while sucking a lollipop made it taste better, or to try an odd style of private yoga called Karma Sutra which he said was usually practised naked with a special someone but Cloud needed all the help he could get. He also told Cloud that if anyone tried to stuff something up his backside to yell 'rape', kick the guy in the nuts, and to run off. But as rape was forced sex, and sex only happened when a man put his penis in a woman's vagina after marriage so they could have a baby, then what the man described wasn't rape, so Cloud wasn't quite sure how seriously to take him.

He'd asked Harry once and been called 'innocent.' Though that had gotten him a real smile from the normally monotone man: a mere upwards quirk of the lips, but with the way those amazingly clear emerald eyes glowed it was beautiful. Following that he hadn't seen Harry for five days, which considering they ate in the same cafeteria, went to the same classes, and slept in the same room was extremely impressive.

Now after a month of basic training designed to test how they all performed they had been separated into a barracks with their new squadron. There were three groups of thirty classed as Advanced, Average and Novice, though Harry claimed that the instructors called them Potential Soldiers, Army Grunts and Cannon Fodder instead. Cloud had Harry to thank for making it into the Average grouping.

Amazingly Harry was also in this grouping. On the day of the tests he had had the worst performance of his time at Shinra, which Harry brushed of with an embarrassed rub to the back of his head and a strained mutter of 'performance anxiety'. Cloud however was almost certain that the man had failed the tests on purpose, but as he couldn't come up with a good reason why Harry wouldn't do his best in the ranking test he was unsure of his theory.

Now they were running the standard five mile morning sprint with the classic threat of if they didn't get back in a certain time limit then they wouldn't get breakfast, and Cloud had figured out what the pads Harry had strapped to his thighs, ankles, waist, biceps and wrists were. He was wearing weights. And they were pretty heavy if the sound they made when they hit the floor was any indication. Somehow Harry was able to complete the run that had the whole squadron gasping for air and covered in sweat with hardly a change in breathing, limited sweat and wearing weights. Hence Cloud's staring. Hell not even the Advanced squadron could do that, Cloud knew this because he'd seen the sweat stains on their clothes every morning. Just what was this guy!

With his lungs screaming for oxygen and black spots dancing across his eyes, Cloud decided to stop trying to figure it out and focus on running. Unseen by the small blond Harry smirked and subtly picked up his pace, causing Cloud – who always just stared at his back and tried to keep up – to also speed up.

Unnoticed by the blonde he'd gone from being the lowest rank of his squadron to being a quarter from the bottom in just two weeks because of this tactic. And as exhausted as Cloud was it would be many more months before he did notice the advancements.


	3. A Puppy is for Life Not Just For Christmas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: the characters and the worlds are not mine, they belong to their creators.

The Holly Trinity – plus their puppy – gazed forlornly at the list of names set out on the printed paper before them. Someone higher up had decided that a good way to distract the SOLDIERs during peacetime with Wutai – made possible by the negotiations between Shinra and Wutai for a treaty – was to have each of them mentor a cadet. Apparently Angeal Hewley had shown it was a viable training method when he took a disruptive hyperactive man-child and created one of the best SOLDIERs Shinra had.

Most SOLDIERs were enthusiastic about the idea, though whether they wanted a protégé or a dogsbody was debatable. Sephiroth on the other hand had no idea what to do with a cadet, nor what was the reasonable expectations for one. He somehow doubted that dumping them in a nest of monsters and telling them to find their way back if they survived would be an approved method. Genesis Rhapsodos just didn't see why he should have to deal with a midget, and his legendary temper made people reluctant of giving him a cadet anyway. The janitors were already preparing for the call to clean eviscerated cadet off of one of the walls. And Angeal Hewley just wanted to remain with his beloved puppy, a feeling his puppy returned though Zack was also excited about gaining his own protégé and passing on what Angeal had taught him.

Worse, they weren't allowed to look over the list and choose their own cadet, the cadets had been assigned to them.

According to that list both Genesis and Angeal had been given cadets from the Advanced grouping, while Sephiroth and Zack had cadets from the Average grouping. Genesis had a cadet from the Advanced grouping in hopes that the poor dear wouldn't be killed for being totally useless. Originally Human Resources were going to let one of the Novice grouping live up to their destiny as Cannon Fodder, but someone pointed out there was a chance for drastic improvement over the coming months, and apparently one of the Advanced cadets had gotten on an instructors bad side...rest his soul. Angeal was given an Advanced cadet because no instructor could hold the boys attention, and as Angeal had tamed Zack they had hope this cadet could also be salvaged. Sephiroth was given an Average cadet because of all the cadets in the barracks he was the only one that didn't nearly wet himself in fear and awe at the sight of the silver haired SOLDIER, in fact this cadet seemed to barely notice the silver General's existence. And the cadet chosen for Zack was a shock: an Average cadet as Human Resources were a bit unsure how capable Zack was of teaching the basics, but where Zack was outgoing, muscular, book poor but physically impressive, the cadet was small in stature, shy, book smart but physically uninspiring, and he had a problem with being bullied. Though it should be noted that the worst bullies had taken an about turn recently and did their level-best to stay far way from the blond and his black haired friend.

All four of them looked up at the smirking Director Lazard, annoyed now that they had taken the offered seats and could not loom over the man to properly show their displeasure, “you can collect your cadets from the cafeteria following breakfast tomorrow, have fun!”

From the enraged look on Genesis' face as Lazard swanned from the room – was the bastard humming – this was going to be anything but fun. Angeal began rearranging his schedule to teach his own cadet, check that Zack was instructing his own cadet effectively, and to shield Genesis' cadet from the worst of the red-head’s wrath. A side glance at the slight perplexed tilt of Sephiroth's eyebrows showed that he'd probably be responsible for the continued survival of that cadet too.

Watching Genesis surge to his feet and upend the Directors table in a fit of pique, Zack getting up barely a second later to begin a series of squats to express his own heightened emotions (that didn't need heightening, damn it, he was a walking ball of emotion already), and Sephiroth begin to commune with his sword (as if an inanimate piece of metal would have more of an idea on how to teach a cadet than he did), Angeal released an aggrieved sigh.

It was hard being the only sane member of the SOLDIER First Class.


	4. Mornings Should Not Exist

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: all characters and worlds belong to their respective creators.

The day began quite normally for the Average Barracks. At a reasonable time in the morning they were awoken by the melodious voice of their den mother, and encouraged to run around a bit before a delicious breakfast. At breakfast they happily chatted to each other, forming lifelong bonds of camaraderie, and eagerly anticipated their new foster mothers who would nurture them on the road forward.

Cloud had spent enough time with Harry to understand what sarcastic comment was running through his mind when _that_ particular muted smirk appeared on his face.

In reality… at the break of dawn Cloud found himself flying through the air from his wooden plank of a bed courtesy of Sergeant Miller's size 13 boot. He was then brought out of his tired daze by said sergeant’s high pitched scream, as Harry's instinctual reaction to this early morning wake up call kicked in, and a materia text book (hard-cover, with at least 900 pages) wedged itself at speed between his legs. This was quickly followed by Sergeant Miller's collapse into the frame of the bed behind him head first, hard enough to cause short term amnesia. Which would explain how this somehow _was_ the normal wake up call for the Average Barracks.

In a daily effort not to be the cadet blamed for this the whole barracks would empty in less than a minute, and for half a mile of their morning run the Advanced Barracks would watch in confusion as the Average Barracks put them to shame and left them in a cloud of dust...only to reclaim their dignity as they passed the exhausted cadets stumbling along as their bodies refused to keep up such a fear inspired pace. Several very painful stitches and more than one round of vomiting a reminder to them of their limits.

At this point Cloud would visually latch onto Harry's back – who saw no need to run for his life and was going at an acceptable pace – and follow him the rest of the five mile course.

Breakfast looked like someone had scooped up their vomit and put it on a plate – which wasn't true as one day, to make sure, they'd scooped it up themselves – and steady disgruntled snarls and growls filled the hall as tempers flared due to exhaustion and discontent. The air was sour due to drying sweat, the tables so cramped that an elbow going into another person's plate was commonplace, and a sense of unease filled the air as they all waited for their assigned SOLDIER to be designated.

The doors to the cafeteria squealing open on rusted hinges caused instant silence in the room, and every cadet – bar Harry, and some guy in the back who was asleep – gulped as Staff Sergeant Ashel made himself known with a ferocious roar of “SHUT UP YOU HUMAN-SHAPED SACKS OF CRAP!”

The man was built like the love-child of a brick wall and a tank: red skin due to constant anger, wider then three men together, black eyes that glared from behind a fearsome scowl that none of the cadet's had seen leave his face in the last six months.

Cloud saw his life flash before his eyes...it was boring.

“FOR SOME REASON THE SOLDIERS HAVE TO PUT UP WITH YOUR WORTHLESS HIDES FOR WHO KNOWS HOW LONG-”

For some reason this man had only one volume, you had to feel sorry for the mother who endured that... _dang it Harry_ , put that smirk away!

“-TRY TO SURVIVE AND YOU MIGHT BECOME DECENT SOLDIERS YOURSELVES.”

What a pep-talk, you could feel the warm fuzzies in the air. Cloud wondered if tape would stop that smirk.

“DAVIDSON, REYNOLDS, POTTER, STRIFE...REPORT TO ROOM 306. THERE ARE SPECIAL PLANS FOR YOU.” Staff Sergeant Ashel just _grinned_ , the world was ending.

Cloud had to be dragged to his feet by a smiling Harry, who chimed a “yes sir” with a cheerful salute, and changed that grin to the most intimidating glare Cloud had ever seen. Which true to form intimidated Harry not at all. The twenty-something then slapped a brunette on the back causing him also to rise, and tossed a salt shaker at the head of the sleeping-guy before miming at the newly-awakened-guy to come with them.

The cafeteria doors slammed shut behind them, condemning them to the eternal damnation of the 'special plans'. Like lost little ducklings the three teenagers followed the enthusiastic twenty-something – who was acting this happy on purpose to annoy them, Cloud just knew it – through the maze of corridors and stairs to room 306.

It was a normal wooden door, varnished a normal dark chestnut, with a normal brass handle. But in Shinra that meant nothing. They had all heard the rumours of bad cadets going missing, and being turned into science experiments. Any door could lead to a science lab. Or the President's bodyguard – the Turks – could abduct them to appease the mad scientist that managed the SOLDIER programme. Cloud had failed his sword class three times in a row, was he the next science experiment!

“So morbid, Cloud.” Harry stated teasingly.

And without waiting for them to brace themselves, the twenty-something knocked and threw open the door without so much as a by-your-leave. Cloud opened his mouth to question Harry on his manners, when the sight before him finally computed.

The sight before him _wasn't_ normal:

Black leather outfit;

Beautifully crafted sword;

Gleaming silver hair!

This wasn't damnation.

This was _paradise!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I work twelve days out of every fourteen, so updates will be sporadic at best.


	5. Is it Beer Goggles When I Haven't Had a Drop?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Disclaimer: Final Fantasy and Harry Potter belong to their original creators. This will be yaoi, don't like don't read**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you for leaving kudos, it thrills me to know that you like the story. Constructive criticism is welcomed.  
> Sorry it took me so long to put up another chapter, there were two ways the story could have progressed and I was having a hard time deciding which one to use.

Harry had been fully prepared when he entered room 306 to continue his campaign of making the higher ups relieved when he disappeared in just under fives years time...or sooner if he could find his mother's sperm donor. What was the point of playing good little soldier if the majority of the higher ups were ass-hats, the job was basically to subjugate the helpless masses and look good for propaganda posters, and you had no intention of sticking around anyway. 

Not that Harry had been good at showing respect and playing by the rules before he arrived in this dimension either.

He blamed the Potter magic, which had transferred some interesting curses to him at his adoption:

1) _Rules? What rules?_ No Potter was good at following any directive given, so it was a good thing they were usually good enough to be put in charge quickly. You can't break the rules if you're the one making them.

2) _All Potters will have an interesting life!_ The number of Purebloods that had wondered why all the Potters were in law enforcement when they had enough money to live like Kings. The answer to that was bloody self-preservation. If fate was going to screw with you, make sure you have a wand, knife, capable back-up, and are as far away from your family as possible when the worst would happen. This was also why they never bought expensive things. One Lord Potter years ago had purchased a fortress to impressive his fiancé, and years later their two year old son had managed to find a dark object hidden in the walls that opened a gate to Limbo. Tortured souls had poured out seeking heaven, despair filled fog had descended for miles around, the temperature dropped in that part of Britain and had never returned to normal, and the Potters had barely escaped with just the robes on their backs. A couple of centuries later, the Ministry found a perfect island to put their prison...and how it was formed was a tale the Potters were taking to their collective graves.

But the most important curse for Harry at this exact moment in time was 3) _All Potters will fall in love at first sight with the most temperamental, vicious, insane red head in their vicinity, and this love was eternal!_ Some idiot in the Potter line had promised to marry a girl and had broken that promise once he slept with her. She committed suicide and with her dying breath had wished his whole family to suffer with a partner like Sarah Mowdell – who in modern times would have been diagnosed with ADHD, Narcissism, Bi-polar disorder, and rage issues – who was the most annoying person she could think of. That wish became a curse, and every Potter since than has had an extremely healthy respect of their partner or suffered the consequences. (A/N: no disrespect is mean to anyone with these conditions.)

So while three cadets were staring at an admittedly arresting silver haired General and trying not to cream their pants, Harry was planning his wedding and how to break the ritual to take him back to his own dimension. He did not think his future husband – who was reciting poetry to a bound, gagged and held at sword point admin assistant, while sitting on the back of a black haired SOLDIER First Class and ignoring another black haired SOLDIER First Class who was demanding that his 'puppy' be allowed up – would want to leave his prosperous career. His future Husband was a Commander…and his aunt and uncle had said he'd probably marry a drug addict if he could find someone willing to tie themselves to him forever. Speaking of ties, he'd have to research BDSM as his Future Husband's capturing techniques could be hinting at some kinks.

By Merlin, Morgana, and Magic herself, let that man be his Mentor!!!

To Harry's horror that was not meant to be.

He got the silver haired General with a clear lack of personality and a tiny dick if his sword was saying anything. The cocky brunette he'd tapped on his way out of the hall was the one who got his Future Husband as a mentor. And they were already bonding dammit, he wanted to be the one thrown into the wall hard enough to break bones for saying something about that book of poetry. His future Husband looked beautiful with his eyes full of wrath and describing a truly torturous death that the brunette would soon suffer. Even the way he moved his sword as he prepared to castrate the cocky prat was stunning.

And now that older black haired SOLDIER First Class was stopping his Future Husband's righteous justice, allowing the brunette to scuttle into a hiding place behind Harry himself. What a waste.

The light tugging on Harry's uniform shirt brought his attention from the vision of beauty to his concerned looking blond friend.

“Are you okay, Harry? You look a bit dazed.” Cloud asked softly.

“Do you think if I let the Commander kill this guy behind me, he'd take me as his protégée?” Harry asked back, at normal volume.

There was silence in the room, then…

“WHAT!!!” Came from several directions.

The brunette flew out from behind him, and was across the room in less than a second. Cloud looked stupefied. And the officers were all staring at him, even the silver haired one had wide eyes. Harry inwardly preened to have his Future Husband's full attention.

Cloud pulled himself together enough to nearly shriek in confusion “BUT...YOU HAVE SEPHIROTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

“Who?”

Harry's response was enough to have 'puppy' drop back to the floor crying with laughter.

* * *

Genesis was trying to figure out if all this was an elaborate joke.

For years he had been trying to be acknowledged as a hero, as the _best_ hero. But for years he had been cast into Sephiroth's shadow…and that man didn't even care for his hero-status. And now here stood a cadet – lean build, short messy black hair, and unfocused green eyes that were set in a face with dimensions so familiar it almost felt like he should know the brat – who was willing to toss away personal instruction from the General to accept his.

Genesis almost felt like joining Zach in hysterical laughter. The cadet was clearly insane, Sephiroth teaching him would be like the blind leading the blind.

Good luck with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not mean to offend anyone with the medical conditions mentioned in the story, I was trying to describe in as few words as possible someone who wasn't the accepted demure lady of the times. If I have offended I am terribly sorry.


	6. Life Has It's Ups and Downs...We Call Them Squats

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Disclaimer: this story is for personal pleasure, not for profit. All character and worlds belong to their original creators.**

Taking an apprentice was very similar to having a child, Angeal had said. Sephiroth had no idea what that had meant. So he had gone out and bought some child care books. From those, he gathered that he was meant to provide food, shelter, clothing, toys, and affection. As well as punishment for bad behaviour.

So he had turned his apartment office into a bedroom, and packed it with sweets and toys (mainly cuddly toys, simple building blocks, and colouring books, as suggested by what seemed like the most helpful childcare manual he had found: 'Taming your Toddler'). He packed the wardrobe with several uniforms and training clothes. He trained his cadet daily, and gave him hugs, kisses on the cheek and proclaimed that he was proud after every accomplishment his cadet made. He even gave him a spanking after he had caught Cadet Potter badmouthing an Instructor, and had sent him to the 'naughty corner' to 'think about what he had done'. Then afterwards he had hugged him to display his forgiveness and had assured him that he loved him.

According to the book his cadet should be feeling happy and secure of his place in Sephiroth's life. 

That wasn't the case.

None of the toys or food were touched, and if Sephiroth wasn't mistaken the cadet had displayed incredulity when he had first seen them. Training was greeted with enthusiasm at first, but his cadet become more and more wary with every session, and was stiff as a board during the hugs. 

After the spanking, Cadet Potter had started barricading his door at night, and the one night Sephiroth had pushed his way in he had been greeted by the barrel of an energy rifle...naturally he had taken it away as the book said that it was dangerous for children to play with such items, and assured his cadet that he could sleep in his bed if he was scared of something. Cadet Potter's adamant denials had led to Sephiroth suspecting another thing mentioned in the book: bed-wetting. So he had bought adult diapers and assured his cadet that he could sleep with him any time.

Sephiroth hadn't seen his cadet since, and spent the majority of his day trying to track him down, as according to the book it was not good parenting to leave a child unsupervised. 

When he did eventually find his cadet again he decided to change his approach as the books were clearly wrong somehow, and went with the only other method of child rearing he knew: the Hojo method.

Sephiroth knew not to include experimentation, because Angeal and Genesis' reaction when they had found out about the experimentation conducted on him was extremely negative. But the extended training sessions – testing endurance, improvisation, tactics and skill – did not seem like a bad idea.

He started small. He knocked his cadet out and left him naked in the very depths of the slums, with a message carved on the wall nearby telling him to return to Shinra within four hours or he would be expelled from the SOLDIER programme. His cadet made it back in three, wearing basic pants and t-shirt that had seen better days, no shoes, covered head to toe in grime and green blood, and clutching a rusted pocket knife like his life depended on it. Sephiroth had congratulated him for completing his objective, then used a powerful water materia blast to knock the cadet into the wall behind him and clean off the worst of the filth. Then, with no chance to eat, drink, rest or change, Sephiroth put the cadet through five simulations in the hologram rooms: each focusing on a different climate, terrain and situation. Only when the cadet looked ready to keel over did he allow him to have a shower and retire to bed.

No more escape attempts were made by the cadet after that and he relaxed more around Sephiroth, so clearly this approach was best.

Sephiroth would have to get Hojo a Fathers Day card this year.

Thank god that all the mako in his system rendered him sterile.

***

Angeal's cadet was coming along nicely if he didn't say so himself. There had been some issues in the beginning with the extreme laziness that the boy presented, but with a heavy exercise regime and the promise that he wouldn't see his bed until he had completed all of it, the cadet had turned himself around.

Angeal had also promised the kid that if he got finished in a certain amount of time he could have the next day off. The carrot and the stick approach, it always worked well.

And just in case, Angeal had promised the cadet that he could swap with one of the others if he wanted, then allowed him to witness their training sessions…

**With Victim Number 1**

Genesis' cadet, as usual, was screaming for his life as Genesis hurled fireballs at him to 'improve his evasion capacity', and he was being made to recite Loveless as he did so his 'memory would get better'. The heal materia to the side of the room was the only reason he wasn't one large burn scar...well that, and Genesis refused to be paired with someone hideous who would 'detract from his own beauty'.

**With Cloud**

Cloud could hardly feel his arms and legs any more. They had been aching before but now they seemed to have given up.

Training with 'call me Zack' had originatively seemed like it was going to be good, as the cheerful youth had proclaimed that they would spar. But when Cloud couldn't even pick up the sword, all their training had swiftly turned into strength training...which Cloud was useless at.

Cloud also noticed that the young commander seemed to be teaching him his own training menu, rather than one that Cloud would more easily improve with. But Zack believed that he could do it and Cloud would give it his best effort.

When Angeal came to observe, along with his cadet, Cloud was in the middle of doing squats while holding a weight bar three times as heavy as himself, and Zack began to happily tell Angeal what else was on the training menu...the other cadet looked horrified.

**With Harry**

Harry was in the middle of evading a mob of monsters that looked like a lamp-post and a TV had procreated, when a second cadet was tossed into the hologram room with him. The other cadet quickly vanished as he was 'killed', but his distraction had given Harry enough time to find the weak spot on the creatures metal covered hide.

No sooner had he killed them all, than the simulation changed and he was in the pitch black, and Sephiroth's emotionless tones were telling him to kill all the vampires and bring in the coven leader for questioning (the man was starting to get creative...but as long as he didn't return to the creepy baby stuff, Harry didn't care). And that other cadet was back...and swiftly dispatched.

This was a repeated experience through the next seven simulations, until Sephiroth decided that it was time to start physical training.

The other cadet just whimpered and promised eternal devotion to strained looking Angeal.

**[Later that Day]**

“YOU IDIOTS” was heard throughout the Shinra facilities, “DO _THESE_ TRAINING MENUS FROM NOW ON!”


	7. Someone Asked Me, If I Were Stranded on a Desert Island What Would I Take With Me? My Answer: a Book, 'How to Build a Boat'.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Disclaimer: characters are not mine, world is not mine. They belong to their respective owners. This work is made for personal enjoyment, not profit.**

One month into one-on-one mentoring Wutai began to act up, and in a show of aggression a large bulk of SOLDIERs were shipped to Wutai to cow the natives. The Holy Trinity – plus pet – were naturally the centrepiece of this inspiring negotiation tactic, which left many cadets without instructors. So SHINRA stuffed them into a boat and dumped them on a desert island for 'survival training'.

They had been left with nothing but the clothes on their backs...and many of them were city boys. Most of the cadets descended into mass hysteria, with a lot of screaming and running in useless circles mixed into the disorganised chaos. The few that had a shred of common sense or some experience of camping tried to instil some order, but were getting nowhere.

Cloud had attempted to aid those around him. His sweet naïve little heart not wanting to see someone in pain or frightened. But he was a head smaller then everyone and hardly inspired confidence, so was getting nowhere. His fellow First Class Mentees were not going out of their way to help him. The lazy one was enjoying his new freedom to do nothing, and doing precisely that. The cocky one was laughing at the chaos and calling out insults or unhelpful ideas to keep the disaster going. And Harry was planning his proposal to his red-haired god, he could either use Loveless, save his life when they were on a mission together, or perhaps cook him a meal better than the slop they served at SHINRA...he'd probably be able to use them all, his mother had turned his father down two-hundred-and-eighteen times after all. Potter men did not give up that easy.

It was about mid-afternoon on the first day when Harry decided to get some work done, and dragged Cloud away to find shelter and dinner. Lazy and Cocky trailed behind them, shortly followed by the other cadets with a lick of intelligence. And that was how for the next four months the cadets somehow divided into two tribes: one well-fed, well-sheltered and in a generally good mood, and the other full of hungry, wet and tired near zombies who were so far gone it was like watching a pack of animals. Which led to the fun game in camp have-a-brain, where they would commentate on the other camp like they were watching a nature documentary.

So far Stubbles and Fluffy had bonded before the pack as Alpha Male and Alpha Bitch, and had successfully led the pack to a cliff overhang near a sizeable pond of water. Harry was commenting that day and was jokingly taking bets on how long it would take before the idiots realized the water was what was giving them diarrhoea. 

Cloud on the other hand had been leaving food for the pack to silence his sense of guilt at not being able to help them on the first day. And rather than realise that another cadet was taking pity on them the pack had formed a new religion, proclaiming that the being leaving them the food was an island god who had eaten the Heathens – aka camp have-a-brain – for not worshipping Him as He duly deserved. Cloud now had to hear numerous teasing remarks about the weird gyrating dance the pack did in his honour, and the worshipping song the pack created for their god Ichafrapla (which had been the sound the Alpha had made in his sleep, when he let out an almighty fart that woke both himself and the rest of the pack, and that the morons took as a divine sign from their god that he had stumbled upon the god's correct name).

In the camp of those with an actual amount of common sense, under Cloud's direction – with Harry enforcing his rule – camp have-a-brain had shelter in the cave system midway up the cliff face on the island, with access to a small waterfall bringing down fresh water. Everyone had designated jobs, ranging form hunting, to clothes cleaning, and making sunscreen and soap. They had camp sing-alongs, ate together, trained together in the mornings when the sun wasn't too harsh, and practised their stealth by sneaking to the other camp and leaving food (Cloud, and one cheerful guy nicknamed Daisy because of his sweet disposition) or playing practical jokes (everyone else, Cocky in particular liked writing strange symbols on one of the pack and watching their frustration as they tried to figure out what their god was trying to tell them). 

Cloud only put his foot down – or rather Harry only decided that something had to be done and convinced the others to help _or else_ \- when the pack somehow managed to get addicted to a hallucinogenic plant, that made them just lay there doing nothing unless given a specific command. However the withdrawal symptoms when the camp tried to wean them off were so severe, it was quickly decided to just let them have the plants until SHINRA came back and sorted it. 

After that, unable to support forty-three people who just lay there and did nothing, a couple of the original camp of seventeen stayed and supervised the pack in basic chores while the rest hunted. Which was how a new hierarchy was established for the next two months with the pack as indentured servants and the camp as the ruling class. 

All in all, as far as Harry was concerned it was a fine holiday. And he even had managed to gain an impressive tan. He was just annoyed that his fiancée wasn't on the retrieval ship that SHINRA sent when they finally remembered about them. 

Apparently the peace talks with Wutai were now back on track though. So all's well that ends well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the comments and kudos, I love knowing that you like my work. Sorry for the long wait.


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